28 Switches: How Two Men Changed Tahoe Forever
There is a little known species of biting midge, Culicoides anophelis, which frequently remains attached to its victims for as long as 56 hours. In order to separate its corkscrewing mouthparts from its host, the midge “has to do a 180 and pull like hell” (Frazer). And yet, we feel no empathy, no pang of remorse for Culicoides’ victims, for the primary prey of C. anophelis are blood gorged mosquitoes, including Anopheles, the genus responsible for the spread of malaria. Scientists have witnessed mosquitos that were so “woozy from blood loss”,they could hardly fly. We are not bothered by this because we accept that mosquitos are themselves a parasite, one responsible for incalculable suffering and death among mankind. On August 27, 1980, an explosion tore through Harvey’s Resort Hotel, in Stateline Nevada, leaving a five-story tall hole, and shattering the windows of any nearby buildings. No one was harmed, and in fact, out of the roughly 600 people booking rooms at the time, not even one submitted a claim for lost or damaged belongings. And yet, it was recorded not just as a catastrophe, but very specifically as a tragedy. Why? We worry not for the poor mosquito, but when our own Culicoides enter the stage, we write mournful editorials bemoaning the loss of a predatory behemoth. Why would the destruction of a casino, the perfect exemplar of capitalist parasitism and excess, be anything but triumphant? (Harvey’s)
The simple answer is that Harvey’s wasn’t predatory at all. Marx would define parasitic capitalism as an environment in which businesses can thrive without directly contributing to the welfare of society, or in some cases, in spite of actively harming it(Marx). However, Harvey’s doesn’t quite fit these requirements. Firstly, Harvey’s was famous for being a “poor man’s casino,” and not in the standard sense. Customers were held to relatively low limits, and were cut off after exceeding them, preventing most from suffering any serious losses. What’s more, the stakes and rewards were quite small, reducing the emphasis on winning or losing money. This decision made Harvey’s more like an arcade than a typical casino, as people paid money more for the experience of gaming than they did for the opportunity to win. And of course, it’s important to note that for much of its early existence, Harvey’s had been successful due to the concrete services it provided. Travelers on highway 50 would stop by to refill on gas, or eat a solid meal. Although slot machines and cards were always a part of Harvey’s, they genuinely seemed to be a way to relax from one’s travels, rather than being gambling for the sake of gambling.(Chandler & Higginbotham)
Act I: Discovery
August 26th, 1980, was shaping up to be a pretty phenomenal day at Harvey’s Wagon Wheel Casino. One of the few refuges from the heat of August in Tahoe, they could expect a slow, but steady stream of tourists and locals alike, looking for shade and cold drinks. For Bob Vinson, it was just another miserable morning on the graveyard shift. It was 5:30 AM, and Vinson was preparing to make his final rounds, when he spotted an encroaching crisis: he was almost out of cigarettes. Determined to make his job more tolerable in the only way he knew how, Bob made his way towards the casino gift shop, where he spotted a conspicuously open door to the employee only telephone exchange. What was going on here? (Higginbotham, 301)
“I don’t think it belongs here,”(Bellows) Vinson muttered, looking at the strange metal contraption sitting in front of him. A massive steel box, like a vault, but with another smaller box on top. There were 28 switches on the upper portion, each numbered, and organized into five rows. Aside from switch #23 in the bottom left corner, all were switched down. The device’s 4 metal legs were placed on wooden blocks, and judging by how they sank into the casino’s carpet, there was a lot of weight pushing down through them. Nearby, an envelope laid on the floor, with the words “Harvey’s Management” typed on one side. Suddenly realizing his responsibilities as an employee, Vinson went to call security, but stopped when he saw that the exit door was closed. On the other side of the door, the knob was sticky with glue, and someone had inserted small pieces wood, possibly toothpicks, into the keyhole. Something was definitely going on, and it was almost certainly beyond his capacity as the graveyard shift manager. A short while later, Vinson crowded around the machine with Simon Caban, Harvey’s security supervisor, alongside a small mob of security guards, sheriff's deputies, firemen and janitors. Caban, increasingly wary of the situation at hand, asked everyone but a deputy to leave the room. The two men hid behind the mysterious grey box, and, safe behind their cover, began poking the envelope with brooms. After a surprising amount of time, their work yielded 3 observations:
The letter, as it so happened, was a ransom letter for Harvey’s. Titled “TO THE MANAGEMENT: STERN WARNING TO THE MANAGEMENT AND BOMBSQUAD”, it listed a myriad of ways the explosive device might be triggered (“Do not move or tilt this bomb...Don’t try to flood or gas the bomb...The flathead screws are also attached to triggers and as much as ¼ to ¾ of a turn will cause an explosion”), the mysterious bomb maker's demands (“three million dollars in used one hundred dollar bills”), and instructions on how the sum should be delivered. First, a helicopter would carry the money to the Lake Tahoe Airport, where it would land, facing east. The pilot then needed to exit the helicopter, alone and unarmed, walk over to a nearby chain link fence, and wait there until he received further instructions from either a taxi driver, a “private individual” or a payphone nearby. The letter failed to mention how many sets of instructions might be issued by the end. (Harvey’s)
It was at this point that the Harvey’s staff leapt into action, evacuating all 600 or so guests inside the casino, calling in a bomb squad, and notifying the big man himself (Bellows). Harvey Gross was, by all accounts, a kind man, a wonderful boss, and a “pillar of the community” (Higginbotham). For many years, he worked not only as manager, but also cook, butcher, and general custodian at Harvey’s. Back then, the casino closed each winter, and Harvey would gather his employees around a fireplace, to eat popcorn and tell stories. While Tahoe was a popular tourist destination in the summers, Highway 50(the only route through) was closed due to snow during winters. In order to keep his casino open year round, Harvey and a few other Tahoe locals grabbed shovels and cleared snow off Echo Summit by hand, resulting in the construction of a maintenance station the following year (Chandler).
Interlude: Stateline
Excavating the pass was far from Mr. Gross’s only impact on the town of Stateline. In 1944, when Harvey and his wife, Llewellyn Gross, founded the resort, it was just a small strip of land off highway 50, with no one around for miles. As Harvey’s grew, so did the surrounding area, and in 1955, Bill Harrah bought a property of his own, the Stateline Country Club. What was once an isolated stop in the middle of nowhere turned into a full-fledged town, right before the Gross’s eyes. In an odd way, they’d started something far larger than themselves.
Act II: Reaction
Back at Harvey’s, tensions were running high after a failed attempt to deliver the ransom (278-279, 307-312). While the bomb had been worrying from the start, common sense stated that no sane extortionist would detonate the bomb before they had a chance to collect their ransom. The deadline for that had passed, however, and there was no telling if or when the bomb might go off. Time was running out, and something had to be done. Harvey was holding a meeting with FBI investigators, a military bomb squad, and representatives from the Nuclear Energy Support Team, word came in that the whirring coming from inside the bomb had stopped, and worryingly, it sounded as if something inside was stuck. A plan emerged: By using a shaped charge, the bomb squad would attempt to sever the device’s wiring, hopefully before the tilt sensor (if one even existed) could trigger a detonation. It was not a good plan, but it was hands down the best option on the table. (Higginbotham, 309-313)
Gross was uncomfortable with the plan, worrying what would happen to his employees if the casino was destroyed. However, conscious of the unknown, and rapidly decreasing timeframe available to him, and without better options, he agreed. As the charges were set up, the Nevada National guard helped evacuation efforts, and the bomb squad surrounded the bomb with sandbags, hoping to reduce the blast size if the charges failed. A crowd gathered outside the evacuation zone, and several casinos held betting pools on if (or when) the bomb would explode. All eyes were on Harvey´s. (Bellows )
If the crowd outside was holding their breath, then Danny Danihel was asphyxiating. Danny, captain of the Douglas County fire department's bomb squad and a veteran of the Vietnam war, had been given the responsibility of detonating the charges. He´d been packing for a family camping trip when he received the call. That was at least 30 hours ago, and he hadn't slept a wink since. Slowly, he walked through Harvey´s empty hallways. The casino, still full of flashing lights and colors, was dead silent, aside from piped-in music. (No one at the casino seemed to know how to stop or even quiet the music. As a result, investigators were unable to hear anything inside the bomb until the first evening, when the music stopped for closing hours.) Exiting the casino and walking into the street, Danny held leads connected to a remote detonator, and waited to receive the final confirmation. His radio crackled out a staticky go ahead, and Danihel touched both wires to a car battery.(Higginbotham, 312-314)
It was a risky plan from the start. Everyone knew that. The shaped charges, when detonated, would result in two sheets of superheated gas being redirected into a precise jet, making a surgical incision and hopefully separating the electronic “brain” in the top portion of the device from the bomb, which X-ray imaging indicated was located in the larger, bottom box. This would all take place in approximately one half of one millisecond. If their attempts at reverse engineering that bomb were imperfect, the shaped charge would likely act, not as a defusing tool, but as a detonator. The bomb squad was also choosing to assume the bomb maker had used low-voltage wiring for the fuse. If they were wrong, signals from the tilt sensor (set off by the shaped charge) would reach the lower portion quicker than the wiring could be severed, and the bomb would explode. Any number of minute details could spell disaster. (Bellows)
Interlude: Meet the Birges
As it so happened, the mysterious bomb maker was a man by the name of Janos Birges. Janos, or “Big John,” was a bad man. Not just because he did cruel or malicious things – though make no mistake, he did. Big John was bad in a grander, more holistic sense, one that permeated his entire being. There was something crude, something angry in his eyes, that never quite went away. He was a tall man, muscular from years of hard labor, with the massive tattoo of an eagle sprawling across his chest. A Hungarian immigrant, John was able to live out his own American dream: He started a shockingly successful landscaping business, quickly becoming a millionaire with a beautiful wife, Elizabeth, and two sons, Johnny and Jim. However, after Elizabeth died under suspicious circumstances, he grew less and less stable. John removed her from all their family photos with scissors, started spending alarming quantities of money, took to wearing suits, and began gambling more. Almost every weekend, he’d head out to Tahoe, where he’d stay at his favorite casino: Harvey’s Wagon Wheel. It’s unclear exactly how much money Big John spent on these gambling trips, but it must have been significant. Whenever Janos stayed at Harvey’s, he was given his choice of the best rooms available, frequently for free, and in 1976, he was even invited to join Harvey Gross at his ranch for three days. Then Big John’s checks started bouncing. January 1st, 1980, Big John woke up to a hospital bed, and the news that he had abdominal cancer. He was terminally ill, out of money, and couldn’t even get a room at Harvey’s anymore. (Higginbotham, 281-286,289-292)
Sometime in late February, or early March, Johnny Birges heard his doorbell ring. Johnny was high, and didn’t want to answer the door, but the bell kept ringing. After the fifth ring, he gave up and opened to the door to see his brother. Jimmy said that Big John was going to build a bomb and use it to get a million dollars out Harvey’s Wagon Wheel. They both laughed, and Jimmy went on his way. (Higginbotham, 279--281)
Big John wasn’t always a landscaper. Before immigrating to America, he’d actually been a pilot in the Royal Hungarian Air Force. Sometimes he would brag to his children about shooting down 13 allied planes in his ME-109, a statement of dubious veracity. He was captured by the Gestapo, but escaped, and became a freedom fighter, attempting to resist the soviet forces which had taken over Hungary. Once again he was arrested, by Soviet secret police, and sentenced to 25 years of hard labor. That’s beside the point though. Big John was a dangerous man, perhaps in ways even his children didn’t realize. And more importantly, he was backed into a corner. (Higginbotham, 281-283)
Although once controversial, it has been fairly well established that whatever positive economic effects casinos can bring to a region, they also tend to significantly increase crime rates in surrounding areas(Friedman et al, 2). Perhaps Janos Birges was an outlier, but the facts cannot be discounted. Violent crime, burglary, and even vehicle theft all tend to increase dramatically in regions where casinos are built. It’s an unfortunate truth, even if softened by Harvey’s pivotal role in the development of Stateline.
To this very day, the FBI uses a Plexiglas model of John’s bomb to train bomb disposal teams. It remains one of the trickiest, and most intricate explosive devices ever encountered by the bureau. The boxes were lined with rubber sheeting, with conductive foil on one side. If a metal tool penetrated the box and touched the foil, the resulting electrical charge would detonate the bomb. There was even a metal pendulum that would, if swung, would contact the foil and detonate the bomb. However, he also chose to place explosives in the smaller “brain” box, not just the larger, lower box. That was the biggest surprise of all: the shaped charge being pointed directly at dynamite.
Act III: Resolution
Danihel threw himself to the ground as Harvey’s erupted behind him. He yelled out in fear, but couldn’t even hear his own voice. The death of the Wagon Wheel Resort was a long affair, and for a good while after the blast, the building was still groaning and crashing loudly. By the time it stopped raining building materials, there was a 3-story deep crater, and debris littered the streets. Harvey Gross never issued a statement regarding the explosion, and although Harvey’s was rebuilt just nine months later, he never quite recovered. (Bellows)
Before the smoke had even cleared, the FBI was back to work trying to find the person, or persons, responsible. “Our major concern was that we knew he was going to do it again,” said Bill Jonkey, head of the investigation. (Clifton).The FBI dedicated 50 agents to leading the investigation, and set up a hotline for tips or suggestions. Calls poured in, as every man, woman and child in the area reported possible suspects, or suspicious happenings in their area. It was chaos. One lead, however, stuck out. A bellman at Harvey’s remembered seeing two men in the casino lobby, pushing the bomb on a cart around 5:45 AM, just a few minutes before Bob Vinson spotted it in the telephone exchange room. By questioning other employees, a more complete picture of the crime was formed. Two men, dressed as maintenance workers, had taken the bomb out of a white dodge van, and carted it into the casino. Covering the bomb was a sheet labeled “IBM”, leading most of the employees to assume it was a piece of office equipment(Bellows). The van was a vital lead, though less informative than hoped. As it turned out, there was an abundance of white Dodge vans in the area, and although the ensuing investigations turned up numerous leads, and even brought a number of suspects to court, no charges were filed. (Higginbotham, 317-319)
Even with a $200,000 reward in place, the FBI weren’t seeming to get anywhere. In a way, this lack of evidence was telling. As one agent stated, “Under normal conditions, a person would sell his mother down the river for $200,000” (Higginbotham,317). The very fact that none of the partners had given each other up implied an unusually close bond between them, likely familial. (Higginbotham, 317)
The first big break in the case came from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Early in the investigation, a man named Gerald Diminico had called in with a tip: the day before the bomb had been discovered, two men driving a white van had checked into his motel, asking for jumper cables at 4 in the morning. Although no driver’s license had ever been issued to “Joey Evetto,” the name used to register at the motel, the van’s license plate was on record. After a grueling transfer process (the plate numbers were “on record,” but clerks needed to search through title changes by hand), the van was found to belong to a Mr. John Birges, the owner of the Villa Basque restaurant in Fresno, CA. (Higginbotham, 318, 320)
Apprehended by FBI agents, Big John explained himself: the van in question belonged not to him, but his son, John Birges jr. Johnny was nervous when he found an FBI agent’s business card on his door, but he stuck to his story: While he and the van had been in the area when the bomb was planted at Harvey’s, he’d been looking for a place to grow marijuana, not an opportunity for extortion. Both Jimmy and Big John backed up this story, and, considering the paraphernalia scattered in plain sight throughout Johnny’s house, it seemed pretty reasonable. The Birges were, as far as anyone could tell innocent. (Higginbotham, 320-323)
However, upon raising the reward for new information to $500,000, the FBI received a call that would save the investigation. The caller, a boy named Danny DiPierri, had once dated a girl who claimed to have once dated the man behind the bombing. After letting the FBI wire his phone, Danny called his girlfriend to verify the story. Kelli Cooper, the girl in question, confirmed that her ex-boyfriend, Johnny Birges, had once told her he been involved in the bomb plot. (Higginbotham, 324-325 )
Using a traffic citation, Jonkey was able to show that both Johnny and his girlfriend had been near Harvey’s the day of the accident. This incongruity in Johnny’s story was enough to justify taking in Johnny for additional questioning. Jimmy was issued a summons, and came voluntarily. It was a gutsy ploy, and risky. There was still no real evidence connecting either brother to the bombing. If either asked for an attorney, or even requested to leave, the whole thing was over. Somehow, it worked; both brothers confessed, and once they started talking, they wouldn't stop. They went through every last detail, over and over, even going on a road trip with two agents to retrace their steps from the night of the failed ransom drop. (Higginbotham, 333-335)
The case wasn’t over though, not by a long shot. Even after hearing both his sons testify against him, Big John maintained his claims of innocence. He’d built the bomb, make no mistake. Crime or no, Big John was too proud to deny his life’s crowning accomplishment. However, he claimed he’d been forced to do it by some organized crime group, on risk of death. Janos questioned his own sons on the stand, and accused members of the FBI and bomb squad of deliberate incompetence. At one point he even brought a car headlamp into court, in an attempt to show how easily the battery of his bomb could have been drained, proving that Danny Danihel intentionally blew up the bomb. In the words of the prosecutor, “Everything [was] covered, but it [didn’t] make sense” (Higginbotham, 335-336).
On March 7, 1985, 5 years after the bombing, John Birges Sr. was sentenced to life in prison. He died of liver cancer in 1996. His sons, pardoned for their roles in the investigation, went their separate ways in life. Jimmy started his own welding business, and achieved a modest level of success. Following in John senior’s footsteps, Johnny also started his own business, roofing, and earned quite a bit of money before his wife died, sending him into a self-destructive spiral. He was in and out of prison for a while, and eventually wrote a novel based on the bombing. (Higginbotham, 337-338)
Harvey’s Wagon Wheel is open to this day, though it was eventually bought out by Harrah’s, and renamed “Harveys Lake Tahoe.” There is no plaque or memorial commemorating the events of the bombing, and even in the Reno-Tahoe area, few people know the story. Ultimately though, the city of Stateline has remained, and with it lingers the legacy of the kind, hardworking man who once dug out Echo Summit, just to show it could be done. (Bellows & Clifton)
Works Cited:
Bellows, Alan. “The Zero-Armed Bandit.” Damn Interesting,
www.damninteresting.com/the-zero-armed-bandit/. Accessed 16 November, 2016.
Chandler, Rick. “Harveys’ long legacy started with Mr. Gross.” Tahoe Daily Tribune,
http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/news/harveys-long-legacy-started-with-mr-gross/ Accessed 10 December, 2016
Clifton, Guy. “35 years ago today: The bomb that shook Lake Tahoe” Reno Gazette Journal,
August 26, 2015, www.rgj.com/story/news/2015/08/25/bomb-shook-lake-tahoe/32363451/ Accessed 16 November, 2016
Frazer, Jennifer. “Mosquitos Have Flying, Blood-sucking Parasites of Their Own.” Scientific
American, October 6, 2014, blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/mosquitoes-have-flying-blood-sucking-parasites-of-their-own/ Accessed 19 November, 2016
Friedman, Joseph, et al. “Casino Gambling as a “Growth Pole” Strategy and its Effect on
Crime”. Journal of Regional Science, November 1989, pp. 615-623. Wiley Online Library, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9787.1989.tb01247.x/abstract
“Harvey’s Casino Bomb”, Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S Government, 26 August, 2009,
archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2009/august/a-byte-out-of-history-harveys-casino-bomb/harvey_082609 Accessed 16 November, 2016
Higginbotham, Adam. “A Thousand Pounds of Dynamite.” Love and Ruin: Tales of Obsession,
Danger, and Heartbreak from the Atavist Magazine, edited by Evan Ratliff, New York, W.W Norton & Company, 2016, 265-322.
Higginbotham, Adam. Personal interview. 7 November, 2016.
Marx, Karl. “Profit of Capital.” Marxists Internet Archive,
www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/capital.htm Accessed 26 November, 2016
There is a little known species of biting midge, Culicoides anophelis, which frequently remains attached to its victims for as long as 56 hours. In order to separate its corkscrewing mouthparts from its host, the midge “has to do a 180 and pull like hell” (Frazer). And yet, we feel no empathy, no pang of remorse for Culicoides’ victims, for the primary prey of C. anophelis are blood gorged mosquitoes, including Anopheles, the genus responsible for the spread of malaria. Scientists have witnessed mosquitos that were so “woozy from blood loss”,they could hardly fly. We are not bothered by this because we accept that mosquitos are themselves a parasite, one responsible for incalculable suffering and death among mankind. On August 27, 1980, an explosion tore through Harvey’s Resort Hotel, in Stateline Nevada, leaving a five-story tall hole, and shattering the windows of any nearby buildings. No one was harmed, and in fact, out of the roughly 600 people booking rooms at the time, not even one submitted a claim for lost or damaged belongings. And yet, it was recorded not just as a catastrophe, but very specifically as a tragedy. Why? We worry not for the poor mosquito, but when our own Culicoides enter the stage, we write mournful editorials bemoaning the loss of a predatory behemoth. Why would the destruction of a casino, the perfect exemplar of capitalist parasitism and excess, be anything but triumphant? (Harvey’s)
The simple answer is that Harvey’s wasn’t predatory at all. Marx would define parasitic capitalism as an environment in which businesses can thrive without directly contributing to the welfare of society, or in some cases, in spite of actively harming it(Marx). However, Harvey’s doesn’t quite fit these requirements. Firstly, Harvey’s was famous for being a “poor man’s casino,” and not in the standard sense. Customers were held to relatively low limits, and were cut off after exceeding them, preventing most from suffering any serious losses. What’s more, the stakes and rewards were quite small, reducing the emphasis on winning or losing money. This decision made Harvey’s more like an arcade than a typical casino, as people paid money more for the experience of gaming than they did for the opportunity to win. And of course, it’s important to note that for much of its early existence, Harvey’s had been successful due to the concrete services it provided. Travelers on highway 50 would stop by to refill on gas, or eat a solid meal. Although slot machines and cards were always a part of Harvey’s, they genuinely seemed to be a way to relax from one’s travels, rather than being gambling for the sake of gambling.(Chandler & Higginbotham)
Act I: Discovery
August 26th, 1980, was shaping up to be a pretty phenomenal day at Harvey’s Wagon Wheel Casino. One of the few refuges from the heat of August in Tahoe, they could expect a slow, but steady stream of tourists and locals alike, looking for shade and cold drinks. For Bob Vinson, it was just another miserable morning on the graveyard shift. It was 5:30 AM, and Vinson was preparing to make his final rounds, when he spotted an encroaching crisis: he was almost out of cigarettes. Determined to make his job more tolerable in the only way he knew how, Bob made his way towards the casino gift shop, where he spotted a conspicuously open door to the employee only telephone exchange. What was going on here? (Higginbotham, 301)
“I don’t think it belongs here,”(Bellows) Vinson muttered, looking at the strange metal contraption sitting in front of him. A massive steel box, like a vault, but with another smaller box on top. There were 28 switches on the upper portion, each numbered, and organized into five rows. Aside from switch #23 in the bottom left corner, all were switched down. The device’s 4 metal legs were placed on wooden blocks, and judging by how they sank into the casino’s carpet, there was a lot of weight pushing down through them. Nearby, an envelope laid on the floor, with the words “Harvey’s Management” typed on one side. Suddenly realizing his responsibilities as an employee, Vinson went to call security, but stopped when he saw that the exit door was closed. On the other side of the door, the knob was sticky with glue, and someone had inserted small pieces wood, possibly toothpicks, into the keyhole. Something was definitely going on, and it was almost certainly beyond his capacity as the graveyard shift manager. A short while later, Vinson crowded around the machine with Simon Caban, Harvey’s security supervisor, alongside a small mob of security guards, sheriff's deputies, firemen and janitors. Caban, increasingly wary of the situation at hand, asked everyone but a deputy to leave the room. The two men hid behind the mysterious grey box, and, safe behind their cover, began poking the envelope with brooms. After a surprising amount of time, their work yielded 3 observations:
- The envelope probably wasn’t a bomb
- It was unsealed
- Inside, there were 3 pages, that appeared to be covered in writing.
The letter, as it so happened, was a ransom letter for Harvey’s. Titled “TO THE MANAGEMENT: STERN WARNING TO THE MANAGEMENT AND BOMBSQUAD”, it listed a myriad of ways the explosive device might be triggered (“Do not move or tilt this bomb...Don’t try to flood or gas the bomb...The flathead screws are also attached to triggers and as much as ¼ to ¾ of a turn will cause an explosion”), the mysterious bomb maker's demands (“three million dollars in used one hundred dollar bills”), and instructions on how the sum should be delivered. First, a helicopter would carry the money to the Lake Tahoe Airport, where it would land, facing east. The pilot then needed to exit the helicopter, alone and unarmed, walk over to a nearby chain link fence, and wait there until he received further instructions from either a taxi driver, a “private individual” or a payphone nearby. The letter failed to mention how many sets of instructions might be issued by the end. (Harvey’s)
It was at this point that the Harvey’s staff leapt into action, evacuating all 600 or so guests inside the casino, calling in a bomb squad, and notifying the big man himself (Bellows). Harvey Gross was, by all accounts, a kind man, a wonderful boss, and a “pillar of the community” (Higginbotham). For many years, he worked not only as manager, but also cook, butcher, and general custodian at Harvey’s. Back then, the casino closed each winter, and Harvey would gather his employees around a fireplace, to eat popcorn and tell stories. While Tahoe was a popular tourist destination in the summers, Highway 50(the only route through) was closed due to snow during winters. In order to keep his casino open year round, Harvey and a few other Tahoe locals grabbed shovels and cleared snow off Echo Summit by hand, resulting in the construction of a maintenance station the following year (Chandler).
Interlude: Stateline
Excavating the pass was far from Mr. Gross’s only impact on the town of Stateline. In 1944, when Harvey and his wife, Llewellyn Gross, founded the resort, it was just a small strip of land off highway 50, with no one around for miles. As Harvey’s grew, so did the surrounding area, and in 1955, Bill Harrah bought a property of his own, the Stateline Country Club. What was once an isolated stop in the middle of nowhere turned into a full-fledged town, right before the Gross’s eyes. In an odd way, they’d started something far larger than themselves.
Act II: Reaction
Back at Harvey’s, tensions were running high after a failed attempt to deliver the ransom (278-279, 307-312). While the bomb had been worrying from the start, common sense stated that no sane extortionist would detonate the bomb before they had a chance to collect their ransom. The deadline for that had passed, however, and there was no telling if or when the bomb might go off. Time was running out, and something had to be done. Harvey was holding a meeting with FBI investigators, a military bomb squad, and representatives from the Nuclear Energy Support Team, word came in that the whirring coming from inside the bomb had stopped, and worryingly, it sounded as if something inside was stuck. A plan emerged: By using a shaped charge, the bomb squad would attempt to sever the device’s wiring, hopefully before the tilt sensor (if one even existed) could trigger a detonation. It was not a good plan, but it was hands down the best option on the table. (Higginbotham, 309-313)
Gross was uncomfortable with the plan, worrying what would happen to his employees if the casino was destroyed. However, conscious of the unknown, and rapidly decreasing timeframe available to him, and without better options, he agreed. As the charges were set up, the Nevada National guard helped evacuation efforts, and the bomb squad surrounded the bomb with sandbags, hoping to reduce the blast size if the charges failed. A crowd gathered outside the evacuation zone, and several casinos held betting pools on if (or when) the bomb would explode. All eyes were on Harvey´s. (Bellows )
If the crowd outside was holding their breath, then Danny Danihel was asphyxiating. Danny, captain of the Douglas County fire department's bomb squad and a veteran of the Vietnam war, had been given the responsibility of detonating the charges. He´d been packing for a family camping trip when he received the call. That was at least 30 hours ago, and he hadn't slept a wink since. Slowly, he walked through Harvey´s empty hallways. The casino, still full of flashing lights and colors, was dead silent, aside from piped-in music. (No one at the casino seemed to know how to stop or even quiet the music. As a result, investigators were unable to hear anything inside the bomb until the first evening, when the music stopped for closing hours.) Exiting the casino and walking into the street, Danny held leads connected to a remote detonator, and waited to receive the final confirmation. His radio crackled out a staticky go ahead, and Danihel touched both wires to a car battery.(Higginbotham, 312-314)
It was a risky plan from the start. Everyone knew that. The shaped charges, when detonated, would result in two sheets of superheated gas being redirected into a precise jet, making a surgical incision and hopefully separating the electronic “brain” in the top portion of the device from the bomb, which X-ray imaging indicated was located in the larger, bottom box. This would all take place in approximately one half of one millisecond. If their attempts at reverse engineering that bomb were imperfect, the shaped charge would likely act, not as a defusing tool, but as a detonator. The bomb squad was also choosing to assume the bomb maker had used low-voltage wiring for the fuse. If they were wrong, signals from the tilt sensor (set off by the shaped charge) would reach the lower portion quicker than the wiring could be severed, and the bomb would explode. Any number of minute details could spell disaster. (Bellows)
Interlude: Meet the Birges
As it so happened, the mysterious bomb maker was a man by the name of Janos Birges. Janos, or “Big John,” was a bad man. Not just because he did cruel or malicious things – though make no mistake, he did. Big John was bad in a grander, more holistic sense, one that permeated his entire being. There was something crude, something angry in his eyes, that never quite went away. He was a tall man, muscular from years of hard labor, with the massive tattoo of an eagle sprawling across his chest. A Hungarian immigrant, John was able to live out his own American dream: He started a shockingly successful landscaping business, quickly becoming a millionaire with a beautiful wife, Elizabeth, and two sons, Johnny and Jim. However, after Elizabeth died under suspicious circumstances, he grew less and less stable. John removed her from all their family photos with scissors, started spending alarming quantities of money, took to wearing suits, and began gambling more. Almost every weekend, he’d head out to Tahoe, where he’d stay at his favorite casino: Harvey’s Wagon Wheel. It’s unclear exactly how much money Big John spent on these gambling trips, but it must have been significant. Whenever Janos stayed at Harvey’s, he was given his choice of the best rooms available, frequently for free, and in 1976, he was even invited to join Harvey Gross at his ranch for three days. Then Big John’s checks started bouncing. January 1st, 1980, Big John woke up to a hospital bed, and the news that he had abdominal cancer. He was terminally ill, out of money, and couldn’t even get a room at Harvey’s anymore. (Higginbotham, 281-286,289-292)
Sometime in late February, or early March, Johnny Birges heard his doorbell ring. Johnny was high, and didn’t want to answer the door, but the bell kept ringing. After the fifth ring, he gave up and opened to the door to see his brother. Jimmy said that Big John was going to build a bomb and use it to get a million dollars out Harvey’s Wagon Wheel. They both laughed, and Jimmy went on his way. (Higginbotham, 279--281)
Big John wasn’t always a landscaper. Before immigrating to America, he’d actually been a pilot in the Royal Hungarian Air Force. Sometimes he would brag to his children about shooting down 13 allied planes in his ME-109, a statement of dubious veracity. He was captured by the Gestapo, but escaped, and became a freedom fighter, attempting to resist the soviet forces which had taken over Hungary. Once again he was arrested, by Soviet secret police, and sentenced to 25 years of hard labor. That’s beside the point though. Big John was a dangerous man, perhaps in ways even his children didn’t realize. And more importantly, he was backed into a corner. (Higginbotham, 281-283)
Although once controversial, it has been fairly well established that whatever positive economic effects casinos can bring to a region, they also tend to significantly increase crime rates in surrounding areas(Friedman et al, 2). Perhaps Janos Birges was an outlier, but the facts cannot be discounted. Violent crime, burglary, and even vehicle theft all tend to increase dramatically in regions where casinos are built. It’s an unfortunate truth, even if softened by Harvey’s pivotal role in the development of Stateline.
To this very day, the FBI uses a Plexiglas model of John’s bomb to train bomb disposal teams. It remains one of the trickiest, and most intricate explosive devices ever encountered by the bureau. The boxes were lined with rubber sheeting, with conductive foil on one side. If a metal tool penetrated the box and touched the foil, the resulting electrical charge would detonate the bomb. There was even a metal pendulum that would, if swung, would contact the foil and detonate the bomb. However, he also chose to place explosives in the smaller “brain” box, not just the larger, lower box. That was the biggest surprise of all: the shaped charge being pointed directly at dynamite.
Act III: Resolution
Danihel threw himself to the ground as Harvey’s erupted behind him. He yelled out in fear, but couldn’t even hear his own voice. The death of the Wagon Wheel Resort was a long affair, and for a good while after the blast, the building was still groaning and crashing loudly. By the time it stopped raining building materials, there was a 3-story deep crater, and debris littered the streets. Harvey Gross never issued a statement regarding the explosion, and although Harvey’s was rebuilt just nine months later, he never quite recovered. (Bellows)
Before the smoke had even cleared, the FBI was back to work trying to find the person, or persons, responsible. “Our major concern was that we knew he was going to do it again,” said Bill Jonkey, head of the investigation. (Clifton).The FBI dedicated 50 agents to leading the investigation, and set up a hotline for tips or suggestions. Calls poured in, as every man, woman and child in the area reported possible suspects, or suspicious happenings in their area. It was chaos. One lead, however, stuck out. A bellman at Harvey’s remembered seeing two men in the casino lobby, pushing the bomb on a cart around 5:45 AM, just a few minutes before Bob Vinson spotted it in the telephone exchange room. By questioning other employees, a more complete picture of the crime was formed. Two men, dressed as maintenance workers, had taken the bomb out of a white dodge van, and carted it into the casino. Covering the bomb was a sheet labeled “IBM”, leading most of the employees to assume it was a piece of office equipment(Bellows). The van was a vital lead, though less informative than hoped. As it turned out, there was an abundance of white Dodge vans in the area, and although the ensuing investigations turned up numerous leads, and even brought a number of suspects to court, no charges were filed. (Higginbotham, 317-319)
Even with a $200,000 reward in place, the FBI weren’t seeming to get anywhere. In a way, this lack of evidence was telling. As one agent stated, “Under normal conditions, a person would sell his mother down the river for $200,000” (Higginbotham,317). The very fact that none of the partners had given each other up implied an unusually close bond between them, likely familial. (Higginbotham, 317)
The first big break in the case came from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Early in the investigation, a man named Gerald Diminico had called in with a tip: the day before the bomb had been discovered, two men driving a white van had checked into his motel, asking for jumper cables at 4 in the morning. Although no driver’s license had ever been issued to “Joey Evetto,” the name used to register at the motel, the van’s license plate was on record. After a grueling transfer process (the plate numbers were “on record,” but clerks needed to search through title changes by hand), the van was found to belong to a Mr. John Birges, the owner of the Villa Basque restaurant in Fresno, CA. (Higginbotham, 318, 320)
Apprehended by FBI agents, Big John explained himself: the van in question belonged not to him, but his son, John Birges jr. Johnny was nervous when he found an FBI agent’s business card on his door, but he stuck to his story: While he and the van had been in the area when the bomb was planted at Harvey’s, he’d been looking for a place to grow marijuana, not an opportunity for extortion. Both Jimmy and Big John backed up this story, and, considering the paraphernalia scattered in plain sight throughout Johnny’s house, it seemed pretty reasonable. The Birges were, as far as anyone could tell innocent. (Higginbotham, 320-323)
However, upon raising the reward for new information to $500,000, the FBI received a call that would save the investigation. The caller, a boy named Danny DiPierri, had once dated a girl who claimed to have once dated the man behind the bombing. After letting the FBI wire his phone, Danny called his girlfriend to verify the story. Kelli Cooper, the girl in question, confirmed that her ex-boyfriend, Johnny Birges, had once told her he been involved in the bomb plot. (Higginbotham, 324-325 )
Using a traffic citation, Jonkey was able to show that both Johnny and his girlfriend had been near Harvey’s the day of the accident. This incongruity in Johnny’s story was enough to justify taking in Johnny for additional questioning. Jimmy was issued a summons, and came voluntarily. It was a gutsy ploy, and risky. There was still no real evidence connecting either brother to the bombing. If either asked for an attorney, or even requested to leave, the whole thing was over. Somehow, it worked; both brothers confessed, and once they started talking, they wouldn't stop. They went through every last detail, over and over, even going on a road trip with two agents to retrace their steps from the night of the failed ransom drop. (Higginbotham, 333-335)
The case wasn’t over though, not by a long shot. Even after hearing both his sons testify against him, Big John maintained his claims of innocence. He’d built the bomb, make no mistake. Crime or no, Big John was too proud to deny his life’s crowning accomplishment. However, he claimed he’d been forced to do it by some organized crime group, on risk of death. Janos questioned his own sons on the stand, and accused members of the FBI and bomb squad of deliberate incompetence. At one point he even brought a car headlamp into court, in an attempt to show how easily the battery of his bomb could have been drained, proving that Danny Danihel intentionally blew up the bomb. In the words of the prosecutor, “Everything [was] covered, but it [didn’t] make sense” (Higginbotham, 335-336).
On March 7, 1985, 5 years after the bombing, John Birges Sr. was sentenced to life in prison. He died of liver cancer in 1996. His sons, pardoned for their roles in the investigation, went their separate ways in life. Jimmy started his own welding business, and achieved a modest level of success. Following in John senior’s footsteps, Johnny also started his own business, roofing, and earned quite a bit of money before his wife died, sending him into a self-destructive spiral. He was in and out of prison for a while, and eventually wrote a novel based on the bombing. (Higginbotham, 337-338)
Harvey’s Wagon Wheel is open to this day, though it was eventually bought out by Harrah’s, and renamed “Harveys Lake Tahoe.” There is no plaque or memorial commemorating the events of the bombing, and even in the Reno-Tahoe area, few people know the story. Ultimately though, the city of Stateline has remained, and with it lingers the legacy of the kind, hardworking man who once dug out Echo Summit, just to show it could be done. (Bellows & Clifton)
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